Essay On The Counterculture

1907 Words8 Pages

“Make love, not war”, a very popular anti-war slogan that emerged during the 1960’s, represented a principle belief that ultimately created the counterculture, and explained the simplicity of ideals that the counterculture era encompassed. The counterculture was comprised of many parts of society which encouraged the transformation in attitudes towards society in middle class, mostly white, young Americans. The characteristics which supported the counterculture movement included hippies, drug culture, sexual revolution, music, and literature. When combined, these creative aspects formed the counterculture and caused people to think and act differently than they had before. People during this period lived by similar ethics, and expressed it through a variety of ways, changing their appearances and overall daily life as war progressed and obtaining a different perspective of violence. During the 1960’s, Americans began to see the unfair horrors of war, thus developing a feeling of restlessness toward the government. The Vietnam War (1959-1975) was one of the main contributors to the counterculture. Initially, many thought the war and intervention in Vietnam was necessary, but as it progressed people began to see the inequitable destruction. Due to their change in attitudes regarding the war and violence in general, people held protests and other anti-war movements and took it to further promote peace and love, which lead into other ideas of the counterculture. This movement greatly influenced America because the transformation in beliefs regarding war and violence had caused great social unrest, and impacted all other parts of people’s lives. The birth of the counterculture essentially established different ideologies that emphasize...
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Throughout the 1960’s, the counterculture era emerged from American society. Drug culture, hippies, sexual revolution, literature, and music all greatly contributed to influencing the attitudes and ideals of the late twentieth century. Each aspect of the counterculture influenced people’s ideologies and lifestyles. They developed a new sense of creativity which was never found in previous years in the United States. People experimented beyond their comfort levels and developed a ideals which contradicted the restricting ones prior to the movement. Counterculture left an everlasting impact. The emphasis on hippies and drugs and the other aspects of the society during the 60's has diminished, but towards the end of that century, long hair and colorful clothes became a trend, and the overuse of drugs led to overdose and addictions, including many Vietnam War veterans.

uprising of counterculture. This expansion, or change in consciousness, took place throughout American society. The bulk of counterculture consisted of middle class white youth who experience a life a leisure because of their parents hard work. They denounced materialism, competition, hard work, and conformity. This directly opposed common American values thus putting the counter in counterculture.
From conflict, truths, and misperceived beliefs came the ideals and values that counterculture was built

walking the streets as a vagabond. These people live by complex philosophies, but to what purpose? I’m fascinated by the fact that they experience discrimination and ridicule, but choose to keep living with it. So exactly what is the appeal to counterculture? What is it about modern society and the mainstream that causes these people to ostracize themselves and announce their individualism? That’s what I hope to find out.
I decided to track back to the roots of counter culturist movements. I discovered

During the end of the 1950s and the 1960s, there were two main cultures; the mainstream, called Squares, and the counterculture, called Hippies. These two cultures had very different ideas on nearly every topic. One of the topics that they disagreed on was sex. Hippies enjoyed having sex often and with multiple partners. However, this posed a great risk: pregnancy. As science progressed, a birth control pill was created. The birth control pill fueled the hippie movement because it created a sexual

The counterculture movement which was multiple culture movements trying to gain greater rights for civil groups was mostly made up of the young generation of Americans. The counterculture movement was a success in the mind of movement supporters. The movement changed America from a strongly conservative nation to a more open country. America was tolerant, supported racial ideas, protest, dropping out of school, sex and new art. Without the protest, riots and demonstration, the Counterculture movement

I believe that the Counterculture Movement of the 1960s and 1970s was a success. The Counterculture Movement helped shape the way that many Americans view life today by shifting American culture and social beliefs, and by challenging the traditional American values .
The Counterculture Movement had many successes, one of them was anti-war protests against the Vietnam War. During the 1960s, the United States and the rest of the world was in danger of falling into communism. The United States, being

Chase DeLunas
Honors AP Language and Comp
Mr. Jennings
May 11, 2014
Civil Rights, Counterculture and the 1960’s
In America in the 1960’s, the emerging counterculture and increasing civil rights movements paved the way for the forms of equality and freedom we have in our nation today. Many of the things that we consider ‘normal’ today were strange, if not taboo back in the sixties. People began defending themselves and standing up for their beliefs concerning just about anything they deemed not

Many scholars have already explored the unresolved contradictions and conscious ruptures of logic and reasons of the Counterculture. This essay wants to provide an additional study of the 1960's, focusing on the role played by the arts, and by music in particular, as commentators and resource of the Counterculture. This will lead to my main research question which is to try to understand the echoes and the weight of the 1960's in the Modernity.
If considering the 1960's decade from the point of

and the Counterculture, asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition. Imagination and individuality are associated with the term. Henry David Thoreau who was a leading philosopher and poet was a leading transcendentalist. He compiled a novel titled Walden, a non-fiction depicting his stay at Walden Pond where he truly explored nature and his transcendental quality. Similar to Thoreau, the Counterculture was a non-conformist

In Joan Didion’s essay “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Didion recounts her numerous experiences and observations with people of multiple ideals and personalities within San Francisco, California during the 1960’s. During this time period, San Francisco arose as a renowned counterculture center. It attracted specifically young people from all over the United States who were seeking to detract themselves from the conventional society that took place in households throughout America. Didion decides to

Slaughterhouse Five is the ideology of the 1960’s counterculture poured into a fictional autobiography, creating one of the most powerful anti-war books in history. This story is the fictional memoir of Kurt Vonnegut, a WWII veteran, who has suffered the effects of war on the human psyche. Slaughterhouse Five is not written as an anti-war story, however its portrayal of the destruction as a story leaves the reader with a sense of disgust. Vonnegut created this story during the counterculture’s rebellion